The text message was a blade, sliding clean between Isla's ribs and twisting until she could hardly breathe.
Her phone glowed in the harsh fluorescent light of the subway platform, the words stark against the screen:
We need to talk. Come alone, or your sister's treatment gets much more expensive.
Few hours. That was all they were giving her. Few hours to walk back into Blackstone's tower and face Marcus… or watch Emma's life be held hostage until it slipped away for good.
The downtown train screeched into the station, brakes shrieking like something in pain, and the stale air rushed across Isla's face. She clutched the phone tighter, her knuckles white, her stomach a hard knot of panic. It wasn't until she stepped toward the train doors that the fatal mistake hit her like a fist:
She had left her cart.
Her cart. On the fifty-fifth floor. Her cart with her name, her ID, everything. Her entire life stamped in plastic and laminated paper, sitting like a gift-wrapped package for Marcus Blackstone.
The train doors slid open with a metallic sigh. Commuters shuffled past her, tired nurses, bleary bartenders, invisible faces like hers who belonged to the city's graveyard shift. She stepped inside but couldn't sit, couldn't even hold still. Her body buzzed with dread.
At the very next stop, she bolted out again, taking the stairs back up to the street two at a time.
They already knew. The text message proved it. They'd gone through her cart, pulled her file, maybe even sent someone to her apartment by now. Every detail of her life, her debts, her failures, her sister, was already a weapon in their hands.
The smart thing would be to vanish. Grab Emma from the hospital and run until the city was nothing but a smear in the rearview mirror. But Emma couldn't travel, not in her condition. Even if she could, eight hundred dollars in savings wouldn't get them far. And running would confirm Isla was a loose end worth cutting.
No. If she wanted to survive this, she had to stop being prey. She needed to think like them. Cold. Tactical. She needed leverage.
Her thumb hovered over her contacts before she scrolled and stopped on a name: Tony – 'Night Security'.
She hit call.
It rang twice before a gravelly voice answered. "Martinez? It's past three in the morning."
"Tony, it's me. I...I left something important on fifty-five. Can you let me back up? Just for a few minutes?"
A long pause. "Rules are rules. You know that."
"Please." Isla poured just enough desperation into her voice to make it believable. "It's personal. Family. Five minutes. I'll make it up to you. Dinner..your choice. That place you like with the mole."
Silence stretched, then a sigh. "Five minutes. And if anyone asks, I didn't see you."
Relief nearly buckled her knees. "Thanks, Tony. You're a lifesaver."
Fifteen minutes later, Isla was back inside the glittering lobby of Blackstone Industries. The marble floor gleamed under the cold lights, as pristine and merciless as ever. Tony barely looked up from his crossword puzzle as he buzzed her through. He didn't need to. People like them survived by not noticing too much.
The service elevator groaned as it carried her upward. Isla gripped the metal railing, her pulse a relentless drumbeat in her throat.
The fifty-second floor was just as she'd left it, the conference room half-cleaned, supplies scattered in a rush. Her cart sat innocently against the wall, waiting to damn her. She moved quickly, gathering her things, forcing her hands not to tremble. If she could just return it to the supply closet, put everything back where it belonged, maybe she could buy herself a few hours.
Then she heard it.
Ding.
The executive elevator.
Her blood froze.
Footsteps echoed down the marble corridor. More than one set. Purposeful.
She abandoned the cart and slid into the nearest office, pressing herself flat against the wall. The frosted glass blurred the figures moving past. Three… no, four shadows.
"...supposed to be here somewhere," a man's voice muttered. Flat, professional, the cadence of hired muscle. "Cart's got her name all over it."
"Check every office," another voice commanded, sharper, cultured, unmistakable. Marcus Blackstone.
Her lungs squeezed tight. He was here. Hunting her himself.
The door handle turned.
Isla's body moved before her mind caught up. Her gaze snagged on a dying plant in a ceramic pot by the window. She grabbed it, muscles screaming with adrenaline, and hurled it through the office's interior window.
The glass shattered outward with a crash like gunfire.
Shouts erupted. Boots pounded marble.
Isla climbed through the jagged frame, ignoring the glass tearing at her uniform. The executive elevator was just ahead. Twenty feet. If she ran
"There!" Marcus's voice, sharp with fury. "Don't let her reach the elevator!"
Her legs pumped harder. The squeal of her rubber soles betrayed her, but she didn't care.
The elevator doors were closing. She flung herself forward, jamming her arm between them at the last possible second. Pain shot up her arm, but the safety mechanism forced them open. She stumbled inside and slammed the button for the parking garage.
The last thing she saw before the doors shut was Marcus's face, bloodless, furious, promising consequences.
"Lock down the building!" he roared.
The elevator plunged.
But Marcus had overlooked one thing: Isla knew this building. Eighteen months of scrubbing every forgotten corner, every dusty shaft and service tunnel. She knew where the architects had cut corners, where the cameras didn't quite reach, where the building's bones were old and flawed. And below, in the garage, there was a way out.
The elevator opened into a cavern of concrete and fluorescent light. The air smelled of oil and exhaust. Rows of gleaming cars stretched out like an armored fleet, Mercedes, BMWs, Bentleys worth more than her entire life.
North and south exits, too obvious. They'd be covered. The loading dock on the east side, though that was her way. She'd seen the maintenance crews use the door beside it, the one that connected to old steam tunnels forgotten by the city. That was her escape.
She sprinted between the cars, lungs burning, legs trembling with exhaustion and terror. The loading dock loomed closer.
Then another ding.
The elevator behind her opened.
Voices. Boots on concrete. Echoing, surrounding, hunting.
Her heart pounded so hard it drowned out everything else. She reached the maintenance door, hand outstretched..
"Going somewhere?"
The voice stopped her cold.
She spun, breath caught in her throat.
Not Marcus.
The man blocking her path was taller, broader, his presence filling the garage like a storm front. Dark hair, steel-gray eyes, and a face she'd seen a hundred times in framed portraits, glossy magazines, shareholder reports.
Adrian Blackstone.
The Ice King.
His suit was flawless. His expression was unreadable, carved from marble. In his hand, he held something small, and when he let her see it, the world tilted.
Her name tag. From her cart.
"Isla Martinez," Adrian said softly, voice precise, almost clinical. "Twenty-three years old. Dropped out of NYU when your mother died. Caring for your terminally ill sister. Father owes forty-seven thousand dollars in gambling debts. You're behind on rent. Behind on medical bills. Behind on everything, really."
Each word hit her like a strike. Her throat closed. "How—"
"How do I know?" He stepped closer, and the faint, expensive scent of his cologne reached her. "Because it's my job to know. Everyone who enters my building. Especially the ones who end up in places they don't belong."
Behind him, Marcus and his men emerged from the elevator, fanning out like wolves. Isla's stomach dropped.
But Adrian didn't turn. He raised one hand, and they stopped.
"The question," Adrian said, eyes locked on hers, "is what to do about it."
Isla forced herself to lift her chin. Her voice came out steadier than she felt. "I don't know what you're talking about."
Adrian's lips curved, but it wasn't a smile—it was an assessment. Cold. Calculating. "My cousin believes you're a liability that needs… removal." His pause was deliberate, the weight of the word permanent heavy in the air.
Her skin prickled.
"But I," Adrian continued, closing the distance between them, his steel-gray eyes unblinking, "think you might be exactly what I've been searching for."